FinCEN and FIU-IND

FinCEN and FIU-IND

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II – International Relations & GS-III – Money Laundering

In news

• Recently, over 2100 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) were filed by banks with the United States Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
• The FinCEN files shall identify at least USD 2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017 flagged as possible evidence of money laundering or other criminal activity by compliance officers of banks and financial institutions.
• Individuals and companies being probed by Indian agencies in different cases are part of the SAR flagged to FinCEN.
• Like, transactions of Indian entities named in scams such as the 2G scam, the Agusta-westland scandal, etc. cases have all been listed with the FinCEN.

Important value additions

FinCEN

• It was set up in 1990.
• It serves as the leading global regulator in the battle against money laundering.
• It collects and analyzes information about financial transactions in order to combat domestic and international money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes.

Suspicious Activity Report

• SAR is a document filed by banks and financial institutions to report suspicious activity to the USA FinCEN.
• These are used to detect crime but cannot be used as direct evidence to prove legal cases

Do you know?

• Money laundering: Concealing or disguising the identity of illegally obtained proceeds so that they appear to have originated from legitimate sources. It is frequently a component of crimes such as drug trafficking, robbery or extortion.
• The Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) performs the same functions as FinCEN in the USA. Under the Finance Ministry, this was set up in 2004 as the nodal agency for receiving, analyzing and disseminating information relating to suspect financial transactions.